Festival is a hit with the girls

The sun shone on the Pit Lane ground in Ketton to give everyone a great day of cricket at the first Leicestershire and Rutland Girls Festival of the 2015 season. Nearly fifty girls competed from five clubs across the area, cheered on by hordes of supporters.

The girls festival format is designed with maximum flexibility to make it as easy as possible for clubs to participate. Only six girls are needed to make a team, and teams that enter are divided into groups based on age and competence, from 8-10 year-old beginners to 13-15 year-old hard ballers. Teams of any composition can be catered for – the main objective is to get as many girls playing and enjoying cricket and feeling the festival buzz.

There was some great batting, bowling and fielding on display from all teams. In the youngest group, Bowden came out on top with some big boundary-hitting. In the intermediate group playing with incredible ball, Ketton, Oakham and Uppingham were closely matched. All teams came away with good wins but Oakham topped the table at the end. In the experienced hardball group, Twycross and Ketton beat each other in two epic games and headed to a bowl-out. Twycross couldn’t recover from two direct hits by the first two Ketton girls and Ketton won through.

All games were played in the best of spirits with the smiles and giggles that are renowned in the girls game, particularly when the jam doughnuts come out.

Further festivals are being planned for the rest of the season to give as many girls in Leicestershire and Rutland the opportunity to get involved. If any club is interested in entering or hosting a tournament, get in touch with Cricket Development Officer Tom Leonard at tom@leicestershirecricket.co.uk / 07821 839 252. You don’t need experienced girl cricketers to compete – just a few new recruits will do – and you can team up with a neighbouring club to make up the numbers.

Many thanks to Chris Mainstone of Ketton CC, who did a fantastic job organising and running the festival and also providing this write up.

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The Leicestershire & Rutland Cricket team is divided into two distinct delivery strands – Growth and Participation working towards achieving our vision of ‘Inspiring people to choose and enjoy a lifelong involvement in cricket’.
We are dedicated to promoting the game of cricket at all levels and work in partnership with a wide variety of professional and recreational cricketing bodies and other appropriate agencies within Leicester, Leicestershire and Rutland.